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Dumping syndrome Diagnosis

Dumping syndrome diagnosis is primarily based on symptoms in people who have had gastric surgery. Require testing to exclude other conditions with similar symptoms, such as irritable bowel syndrome.

Tests and diagnosis of dumping syndrome

Below are some methods to determine if you are having the dumping syndrome.

Evaluation of medical history

Often diagnosis of dumping syndrome is by taking a careful medical history and evaluation of symptoms. If you have undergone stomach surgery and experiencing dumping syndrome symptoms may help diagnosis of dumping syndrome.

Blood sugar test

It can help to test for low blood sugar, which is sometimes associated with dumping syndrome. Oral glucose tolerance test is useful to measure your blood-sugar level during the peak time of your symptoms to help confirm the diagnosis.

Gastric emptying test

It is a diagnostic test using radioactive material added into food to examine how quickly food leaves the stomach. There are two ways of determine dumping syndrome, which include barium fluoroscopy and radionuclide scintigraphy.

In barium fluoroscopy, a barium medium has ingested and taken x-ray images; barium helps to show up contrast image in the x-ray. Early dumping can easily recognize by premature emptying of the contrast medium from the stomach.

In radionuclide scintigraphy (or radionuclide scanning), a radionuclide medium (99mTc) is ingested, and this isotope decays in your stomach. Using a gamma camera, they will detect the gamma photons emitted; the radioactivity in the stomach can then plot with respect to time on a graph. The patients with dumping syndrome normally have a steep drop in the activity plots, which corresponds to be unusually rapid gastric emptying into the small intestine.